The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
As any responsible firearm owner will attest, firearms should always remain locked when they are not in use, so as to prevent an accidental discharge of the same and/or to prevent access by an unauthorized individual. As such, there are many known types of commercially available firearm locking mechanisms such as trigger guards and/or trigger locks, for example which can be secured along or about the firearm trigger to prevent access to the same.
Although useful in their inception, these devices suffer from several drawbacks. For example, because these locking mechanisms are externally mounted, it is not uncommon for one or more pieces of the lock to become lost when the same is not secured onto the weapon. Additionally, it is not uncommon for users to secure the lock onto the weapon incorrectly, thereby causing a situation where unauthorized access can occur. Finally, the time required to correctly secure and/or physically remove the external lock may be unacceptable in emergency situations where the user needs immediate access to the weapon.
For these reasons, many individuals rely solely on the integrated safety mechanism of the firearm to act as the only means for securing the weapon in an inoperable state. To this end, FIG. 1 illustrates one embodiment of a conventional firearm, in this instance a long gun, that is useful for understanding the inventive concepts disclosed herein. As shown, the firearm 1 typically includes a buttstock 2, a handguard 3, an elongated gun barrel 4 and a receiver 5 that houses a magazine 6, a trigger assembly 7, a hand grip 8 and an integrated selector/safety 9.
To this end, the safety mechanism 9 requires the user to physically rotate the mechanical lever to the “safe” position, wherein the internal components of the receiver prevent the weapon from firing even if the trigger 5 is engaged. Although not shown, another common safety mechanism replaces the illustrated lever with a push-button which must be depressed by the user to engage or disengage the safety mechanism.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to provide a firearm handgrip with an integrated safety lock that can be permanently mounted onto the weapon in order to secure the same in a locked state, so as to not suffer from the drawbacks described above.